I'm not sure if I know any 'functional' families, if functional means a family without difficult times and members who don't have a full range of problems.

If you subscribe to the idea that #‎ addiction is a disease, it is startling to see how many of these children - paranoid, anxious, bruised, tremulous, withered, in some cases psychotic - are seriously ill, slowly dying. We'd never allow such a scene if these kids had any other disease. They would be in a hospital, not on the streets.

The hopeful part about that is when you do have that help, you will feel better. It still doesn't make this easy. Nothing makes this easy, but you can make better decisions.

Through Nic's drug addiction, I have learned that parents can bear almost anything....I shock myself with my ability to rationalize and tolerate things once unthinkable. The rationalizations escalate....It's only marijuana. He gets high only on weekends. At least he's not using hard drugs.

I'm not sure if I know any 'functional' families, if functional means a family without difficult times and members who don't have a full range of problems.

How innocent we are of our mistakes and how we responsible we are for them.

At my worst, I even resented Nic because an addict, at least when high, has a momentary respite from his suffering. There is no similar relief for parents or children or husbands or wives or others who love them.